Chrono Trigger is one of the greatest video game stories ever told. This is why every few years, I try to play its sequel, Chrono Cross. I never get very far. Maybe it’s unfair to try and compare the two. They’re very different games that try to accomplish very different things. Chrono Trigger is a game with depth, and Chrono Cross is a game with breadth, and this was an intentional design choice.
But sometimes, comparison is the easiest way for us to figure out why we like one thing and not the other. And on my recent attempt to play through Chrono Cross, I found a comparison that I think is fair to make! So I’m going to make it. This post talks about how each game guides the player through its first two major quests.
Chrono Trigger
Let’s start by looking at Chrono Trigger’s first two major quests: rescuing Leene and finding a way home from the future. If you want to read this summary, go for it! If you already know the plot, here’s a flowchart:
We begin as Crono at the Millennial Fair, a celebration of the Kingdom of Guardia. There we meet a girl named Marle and enjoy the fair with her. While viewing an attraction constructed by our friend Lucca, Chrono and Marle accidentally whisked off to another time – Guardia 400 years earlier, at the height of the war against the Fiendlord Magus.
Marle bears an uncanny resemblance to the missing Queen Leene. The royal guard brings Marle to the queen’s chambers and calls off their search for the real queen. This causes a break with historic events. See, in the present Marle is the princess of Guardia, which makes Leene her ancestor. If the royal guard never rescues Leene, then Leene never has children, meaning Marle is never born. Marle disappears before our very eyes, then Chrono and Lucca resolve to rescue the real Leene, and in doing so rescue Marle.
The first major dungeon in the game is crawling with fiends, but Crono, Lucca, and Frog manage to best them, defeat Yakra, and save the queen. Crono and Lucca return to Castle Guardia to find Marle restored, and the three of them time travel back to the present. There, Crono is arrested for the abduction of Marle, put on trial, and found guilty.
Within three days, Chrono escapes with the help of Lucca and Marle. The three flee through the forest and eventually hop into a time gate, which brings them to the distant future of 1999. The future is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, which the three must traverse to find another way back to their present. In doing this, the characters learn that the apocalypse was caused by a being called Lavos. They decide to use their newfound time travel abilities to stop Lavos and save the world.
Analysis (Part 1)
From the moment our heroes are hurtled back to 600 AD, to the moment they learn about Lavos in 1999, the player always knows what they are doing and why they have to do it. At the fair, we build up an emotional connection to Marle. Then we encounter the time travel plot, and things keep happening to keep the action up. This keeps us engaged in the short term while the overall plot unfolds.
There are long-term seeds and goals too. We want to uncover the mysteries of why we can suddenly time travel, why the future is so dark and desolate, why the Guardia legal system seems to be designed specifically to put us in jail. But from the first introduction of conflict, there is always a clear and immediate goal that pushes the player forward so that they can actually solve these mysteries.
Chrono Cross
Now let’s look at Chrono Cross’s first two major quests: breaking into Viper Manor and finding the antidote in Hydra Marsh.
I should note I am only looking at the story from the perspective of someone who helps Kid, as this is the choice I’ve made on my playthrough, and it seems to be the golden path, the choice the developers want you to make. Maybe abandoning Kid makes for a different first few quests, but I doubt that’s what most people experience for the first time.
We begin as Serge, a teenager collecting dragon scales for his girlfriend. When he collects a good amount of scales, he meets Leena on the shores of Opassa Beach, where he mysteriously disappears. He reappears on the same beach, just in a different world.
Serge has just jumped into an alternate reality where he died on that beach ten years prior. There he encounters Karsh, an Acacian Dragoon who wants to bring him in for an unknown reason. Serge teams up with a tough-talking girl named Kid to fight him off. The two escape to Termina, where Kid suggests they break into Viper Manor. There’s two reasons for this. One, she thinks she can learn more about the Frozen Flame, an artifact she’s looking for. Two, the Dragoons are stationed there, so Serge may be able to learn more about his place in this world where he’s already dead.
Serge and Kid break into Viper Manor, where they meet Lynx, whom Kid already has history with. During the confrontation, Lynx poisons Kid. While the heroes escape, it’s clear Kid won’t survive unless she gets an antidote, and the main ingredient comes from the Hydra – a creature that went extinct years ago.
Serge travels back to his home reality and picks up the antidote ingredient. Kid makes a full recovery and then asks Serge if he’ll hang around in this world for a little bit. Almost like she’s acknowledging that our main conflict has just wrapped up, and there’s no reason for us to not go home.
Analysis (Part 2)
What works about this scenario is how it introduces the player to the concept of parallel universes in play. Hydras don’t exist in Another World, but the player feels smart when they realize that they can hop off to Home World and get what they need. Even if it is a railroad moment, it feels like putting this moment in the player’s hand sits in stark contrast to Crono and the gang being tossed around through time by the powers that be for the first half of the game.
But my issue with this scenario, and probably why I bounced off of Chrono Cross so many times, is twofold. First, we still don’t know what the game’s ultimate goal is. Second, the “why” part of Cross’s immediate goals just aren’t as solid as Trigger’s. The stakes feel low, and most of our motivation stems from wanting to know more. The Dragoons are chasing us and we want to know why. So we’re going to Viper Manor to confront them, even though we just spent considerable time running from them.
Then we get through the antidote quest and witness one of the most impactful moments in the game – the first time Serge shows up for Kid, our first real introduction to a friendship that will span and defy spacetime. We had a clear, urgent, high-stakes reason for doing all that. And at the end of it, Kid’s just like, “Wanna hang out?”
What happens next is that Serge and Kid return to Termina, where we learn the Dragoons are now at Mount Pyre. Kid urges Serge to go after them, to learn more about who he really is. Serge also sees a strange vision of himself stabbing Kid, which troubles him. Maybe he wants to understand the truth of this, too, but neither of these things is an explicit answer to “what’s the object of this game?”
By this time in Chrono Trigger, we learn about our ultimate goal: to stop Lavos from destroying the world in 1999. This, combined with the immediate goal of “find a way to escape this desolate future,” creates a strong motivation for both the heroes and player to move forward.
Conclusion
Since writing the bulk of this blog, I’ve finished Chrono Cross for the first time. For most of the game, Cross doesn’t tell us what our ultimate goal is. It keeps giving us a next thing to chase after, and then a next thing. After a sixteen hour chain of “next things,” we get to the last thing, and then the credits roll.
I think this is because the ultimate objective is too entwined with the mystery of what’s actually happening in El Nido. We’re introduced to tons of characters, artifacts, and concepts (the Chrono Trigger, the Dragon Tear, the Frozen Flame, the Dead Sea, etc.), but we’re not told what they’re for or why they matter until the very end. This means we never get to see short-term and long-term goals working in tandem.
The ultimate goal in Trigger acts as a spine that helps keep the story standing firm. Without one, Cross can’t hold itself up.
Recent Comments